Our first Celebrity cruise

This is our first Celebrity cruise. We have sailed two Carnival cruises in the past (OK) and one Princess (great) - this one was in the great category too.

The ship itself though not new is sound and in good condition. Everything was clean and tidy with one exception - someone puked in a public restroom and this same restroom, near the pool, was sometimes messy. The atrium was "OK" but is obviously out classed by other larger and newer ships. The theater was very nice and huge for this size of boat.

The entertainment varied from good to amazingly awesome.

The dining - amazing quality of food - the best we have ever had. We did select dining and never had to wait. The dining service was good but not as personalized as we have had when not select dining but still very good.

Our cabin was very nice, in good order and comfortable. Our cabin steward was often outside our door as we left and returned offering his services - very nice.

This was the More
first cruise I think for the cruise director having transferred from another company though he used to work for Celebrity years ago. He seemed awfully up-tight at first but by the end of the cruise he loosened up and was fine.

We arrived back to our cabin once and they were repainting the balcony railing. The smell was awful but they left immediately when we complained.

They close the hot tubs at 8pm which is weird. On Princess they were open all the time I think. Sometimes it is nice to have a 1am hot tub.

Port and Shore Excursions

Ocho Rios - dirty. Constantly being solicited. We went in to the flea market tarp city. The vendors were obviously soliciting in here but they were very nice and we had great conversations and bought some souvenirs from them. In here you expect solicitation but it continues out on the street. When you walk in to town you cross a small stream/river. It is horribly lined with garbage. That alone tells you the attitude of the people there. They could have a 50 person clean up party and clean up the river in 4 hrs but... I guess they are too lazy.

To walk on the beach you have to pay $2.50 per person. The beach is very nice and gated off from "most" solicitors - so we did it. On the beach here you cross the shoreline of a couple of nice resorts apparently all inclusive which would make sense here.

The people were nice but obviously lazy and poor and the solicitation on the streets was annoying.

We heard a "rumor" that from our ship two young ladies hired what they thought was a taxi but the two men in the taxi took them to a house and attempted an "assault" - this is unverified.